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The Wow Factor, The Openness, The DevelopersEnvironment, …
October 3, 2008
It strikes me that the recent set of comments made to my post on “Google’s G1Phone: “Innovation For Tech Heads” have wider applicability to the networkeddevelopment environment.To summarise some of the issues which were highlighted in the original Guardianreview which I cited and have been expanded on in John Naughton’sGoogle’sAndroid could smash iPhone’s locked gateway” article published in Sunday’sObserver (28 September 2008):
The Wow factor
: Yes, the iPhone clearly wins with its ‘wow’ factor, As theGuardian review admitted the Android phone lacks the “
wow factor of the Apple device
“.
The usability
: The iPhone, like many Apple devices, also has its strengthsin its ease-of-use. As Paul Walk has commented “
I want a device which‘just works’
“.
The openness of the application environment
: As John Naugton describesin hisGoogle’s Android could smash iPhone’s locked gatewayarticle, astrength of the Android device there’s “
a row brewing inside Apple’s cosilywalled garden
“. It seems that “
developers are beginning to resent what they see as the company’s dictatorial attitude”
. As one commentator putsit:
‘Trying to discern ahead of time [and of development expenditures]what Apple will or won’t accept has become close to impossible, not onlybecause Apple isn’t talking about it, but also because it won’t let anyoneelse talk about it. All apps store dealings with developers are covered by anon-disclosure agreement
“‘.
The potential for power users
: Now the geeks will argue that the iPhone’swalled-garden is a non-issue as it’s possible to ‘jail-break’ the device toallow the installation of applications which may not be available via theApple store. However this approach is clearly not one which the majority of users would be happy with, and conflicts with the need for a device which‘just works’.
The hardware environment
: The iPhone, like Macintosh hardware, is only
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UK Web Focus backup bloghttp://ukwebfocusbackup.wordpress.com/1 of 54403/10/2008 14:51
manufactured by Apple. The Andoid phone, in comparison, can be made byany manufacturer. This competition should help to bring down prices, whichwill be benefical to the consumer (asStuart Smith pointed outto make useof a ‘free’ iPhone “
you are still looking about £810 over 18 months
“). Somuch for social inclusion and widening participation! Now as Mike Ellis argues “
most users couldn’t give a stuff about the closed nature of their devices, applications OR data. Facebook, iPods, iPhone, any gaming console - the list goes on. These all seem to be pretty popular, however much us IT types continue to shout about the dangers of closedness
.” And Ithink he’s right - the IT development community tends to focus on the backenddevelopment processes and policies which are not necessarily of great concernto the majority of users. But even if we accept John Naughton’s premise that‘Google’s Android could smash iPhone’s locked gateway’ we need to emphasisethe importance of word
‘could
‘. It was not so long ago when people argued thatGoogle’s Open Social widget environment would blow away the closeddevelopment environment provided by Facebook. But that, I would argue,hasn’t happened (and, indeed, Scott Wilsonwrote a blog postback in November 2007 in which he described why he was singularly unimpressed by OpenSocial). Let’s be honest and recognise that both the iPhone and Facebook arevery popular with large numbers of users - and let’s acknowledge that thedevelopment community can learn from the popularity of these closedenvironments.And let’s remember the point Mike Ellis madewhen he said “
I find it sad whendevelopers seem to think that any real users actually *care* about what’sunder the hood
“. But why do I think that Mike isn’t just referring to themobile phone debate when he makes this point?Posted by Brian Kelly (UK Web Focus)Filed inGadgets|Edit
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iPres2008 Preservation Conference Gets FeaturedIn The Guardian
October 2, 2008
It was good toread the articlein The Guardian Editorial page yesterday (1October 2008) on theiPRES 2008 Conferenceon digital preservation which washeld at The British Library on 29-30
th
September. As the article states “
If all goes well, we will have the capacity to preserve as many of our memories, personal and national, as we want
“.The issues of how and what we should be preserving on our Web sites happenedto be the content of the paper I presented at the conference on Monday. The paper on “
Preservation of Web Resources: The JISC PoWR Project
” isavailable onlineand the slides of the talk (in which I focus primarily on preservation within a Web 2.0 environment) are also available and areembedded below.
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There is also avideo recording of the talk available (I haven’t yet been able toupload the video to Google Video, I’m afraid).As well as this paper, which described the work of the JISC-fundedPoWR project, I’m pleased to add that two of my colleagues (Alex Ball and ManjulaPatel) also wrote papers which were presented at this conference.I should also add that Chris Rusbridge provided acomprehensive reporton theconference. I was pleased to read Chris’s comments on my talk which hedescribed as “
a very entertaining talk, and well worth looking up
“. He went onto describe me as ”
not a preservationist, but is a full-blown technogeek discussing the roles of the latest Web 2.0 technologies on his blog, in his roleas UK Web Focus
“. And this technogeek was particularly pleased to read thatthe JISC PoWR “
project achieved a strong level of interaction through its several workshops
“.Posted by Brian Kelly (UK Web Focus)Filed inWeb2.0|Edit
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Library 2.0 at the University of Wolverhampton
October 1, 2008
Guest Blog Post
The guest blog slot provides an opportunity to include some different voices andviews on the UK Web Focus, which can provide a fresh insight in the varioustopics covered in this blog.I’m therefore pleased to welcome this guest blog post from Jo Alcock, AcademicInformation Assistant for the Harrison Learning Centre at the University of Wolverhampton - although perhaps better known in some circles as JoeyanneLibraryanne for her Joeyanne Libraryanne blog. In her post Jo describes avariety of ways in which Web 2.0 services are being used and goes on to
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